"Why do you carry so much water?" asked the other hikers as I iodine-d up my three litres in the morning. I didn't have a ready answer. It's a valid question. I'm very scared of running out of water, but it's a fair point that I'm carrying excess backup, and effectively/inefficiently carrying all the water to the next water source, where I drink some of my stash and then refill. On an uphill this morning I daringly pour out some excess so I'm only carrying two litres -- the water sources in this part of the trail are not that far apart. A couple of days on, and I'll be even more sensible and balanced, with my regular water bottle of just under a litre and the Prudent Reserve on my back probably only half a litre. I don't run out of water and I don't get thirsty -- I can make it between watering-holes. I'd been carrying way too much safety-net because of anxiety and a lack of confidence that I could reach the next well or spring before running dry. Here's an obvious life-metaphor, folks.
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| the trail looks like a marimba! At least to me. |
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| The moon was still up while I was filling my water bottle at the first spring. |
Cooper Lodge is creepy and trashed and more than a little reminiscent of the flats in Trainspotting...
I was going to leave my pack at the lodge while I climbed the side-spur trail to Killington Peak, but I didn't want to leave my companion in Trainspotting land. So I hauled it up the boulders to the top:
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| Breakfast of champions. A hiking guide gave me two VT apples. Well fed today. |
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| baby chipmunk! |
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| Someone had signed the trail where it wasn't clear. Using apples. Ah, Vermont. |
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| Gov. Clement Shelter -- one of the oldest on the trail, but a Notorious Party Spot for locals -- GMC lit advises hikers not to sleep there. I sit in the sun and eat some jerky instead. |
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| It used to be fields; now all around the shelter is thick forest. It's true -- reforestation does work. |
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| I start seeing juicy massive pinecones. A change from bouldery landscapes. Old dry-stone walls show that this area was inhabited not so long ago. |
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| A bridge is out since Irene, so I dutifully do the road-walk detour (later finding out that the river's fordable and the LT is totally passable). |
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| It's clear how much this area suffered with Irene, though -- lots of trees are down and the landscape's still jumbled up and scarred. |
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| It looks like a wild marimba to my wilderness-addled brain. |
A tiny red squirrel is chowing down on a massive pinecone. It's pissed off when I try to video.
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extra jovial because a black cat literally crossed my path here.
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The last couple of miles to a shelter are always kind of stretchy and tedious. There are a few more annoying and boring peaks and dips between this road and the Clarendon Shelter. It's getting dark and I get a move on with stinging soles. I get to the shelter -- unusually, in a clearing with flower-baskets and a family camping -- just as the last light is squeezing out of the sky.
Oh hey, I hiked more than 14 miles today. Perhaps closer to 15 with the road detour. Boom!
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